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20 May 2020

Professor Simon Gaunt publishes new book on medieval French literary culture

Professor Simon Gaunt, Professor of French Language and Literature in the Department of French, has co-authored a new book titled Medieval French Literary Culture Abroad.

Medieval French Literary Culture Abroad book cover

Medieval French Literary Culture Abroad (Oxford University Press, 2020) is one of the main outputs from the AHRC-funded project Medieval French Literary Culture Outside France (2011-15), which was a collaboration between the French Departments at King’s, UCL and Cambridge. This book is the first account of how medieval French literary culture and history are shaped by the circulation and production of manuscripts outside France and by non-native speakers of French.

It discusses a wide range of texts, some of which have hitherto been regarded as marginal to French literary history, and makes the case for this material being more central to the literary history of French than was allowed in more traditional approaches focused narrowly on 'France'. The book is richly illustrated and innovative particularly in the attention it pays to French literary culture in Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean.

 

One of the great pleasures of directing this project was being able to involve significant numbers of King’s, UCL and Cambridge Masters and PhD students in the research, some of whom now have academic posts elsewhere and some of whom are still in the Department as postdocs.

Professor Simon Gaunt

 

(Aug 2022 - The Department of French is now the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures)

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